comenate

[Eng. comen(ic); -ate.] Chem.: A salt of comenic acid. at it among the A then i ans were made by Susarion, a native of Megara, about B. C. 578. Epic harm us first gave comedy a new form and introduced a regular plot. That branch of the Attic drama known as the Old Comedy begins properly with Cratinus. It ing the position of the letters.] = "But spring, a new comer , A spring rich and strange." forth the happy hypothesis that they were a kind of planets. Tycho Brahe, about 1577, showed that a cer- tain comet was at a greater distance from the earth than the moon. Hevelius, in 1668, ascertained that the orbit of a comet was concave and not a straight line, the latter erroneous view having been held by Tycho Brahe, already mentioned, and Kepler. Doerfel (1681) believed comets to move in parabolas. In 1682 Halley proved the comet, subsequently called after him, to be periodic in its returns. In 1704 Sir Isaac Newton proved comets to obey the law of gravitation, and held that in all probability they moved in elliptic orbits. (For more modern discoveries, see 3.) 3. Present state of knowledge and opinion: More than 600 comets, according to Mr. Hind, have been taken note of, but about 17,500,000 are believed to exist in connection with the solar system. The head or nucleus is much le solid than it seems. Thus, in 1832, Sir John Herschel saw a group of stars only of the 16th magnitude, almost through the center of Biela's comet. When such a body might be expected to exercise gravitation its influence is too small to be perceptible. Regarding orbit, the comets may be divided into two very dis- tinct cla es: First, those whose orbits are so long that they are usually regarded as parabolas, and second, those whose orbit and period are both short. Of the latter cla , about twelve or fifteen are known. The first seem to have come to us from outside space; the second set, originally belonging to the former, to have had their direction changed so as to produce their present short elliptic orbits by the action on them of some planet. (For the chief comets of the latter type, see at the end of 1. Music : The answer to the Dux or subject. this article.) In 1866 Profe or Schiaparelli, of [FUGUE.] ( Stainer & Barrett .) "So from the dread immensity of space Returning with accelerated course, The rushing comet to the sun descends." That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge In th' arctic sky, and from his horrid hair Shakes pestilence and war." Milan, discovered that the orbit of Tuttle's comet, the third which had appeared in 1862, was nearly identical with that of the August meteors, and Tem- pel's comet, the first of 1866, with that of the Novem- ber meteor stream. In consequence of this discovery, Prof. P. G. Tait published the view that the sudden development of tails many millions of miles in IMG:content-0256.png:[blocks in formation] length, the occurrence of comets with many tails, and the observed fact that there is no definite rela- tion of direction between a comet's tail and its solar radius vector, may be accounted for on the supposition that a comet is a cloud of small ma es, such as stones and fragments of meteoric iron, shining by reflected light alone, except where these ma es impinge on each other, or on other matter circulating around the sun, and thus procom-ět-og-raph-y, s. [Fr. cométographie , from duce luminous gases along with considerable modi- Gr. komētēs a comet, and graphe =a writing, a dis- fications of their relative motion. The differences of motion of the meteoric fragments relatively to the earth, present appearances analogous to those of a flock of sea-birds flying in one plane, and only becoming as a long streak when the plane of the flock pa es approximately through the spectator's eye. The so called envelopes surrounding them are compared with the curling wreaths of tobacco smoke emitted from a pipe. On the 24th June, 1881, Wm. Huggins, Esq., examined the bright comet then in the sky with the spectroscope. A uming this to be similarly composed to other comets, he came to the conclusion that part of their light is reflected sunlight and part original light, and matter. further that carbon is present in the cometary forward. Aristotle thought comets igneous vapors not higher than our own atmosphere. Seneca gave called Apian's Comet. "Compostes and confites."- Babees Book , p. 121. 2. A caraway-seed, a coriander-seed, or other seed, coated with sugar. "And turns to comfits by his arts, To make me relish for de erts." IMG:content-0257.png:[blocks in formation] The American Dictionary and Cyclopedia IMG:content-0259.png:[blocks in formation] "The evidence of God's own testimony not a little comfort and confirm the same."- Hooker. doth 2. To strengthen the mind; to cheer or encourage in time of danger or difficulty. " Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God." Isaiah xl. i. 3. To console, to cheer, to solace in time of trouble or anxiety. "It does not appear that one of the flatterers or buffoons whom he had enriched out of the plunder of his victims came to comfort him in the day of trouble."Macaulay: Hist. Eng., ch. xiv. *4. To place in a state of comfort. but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented."-Luke xvi. 25. ". *B. Law : Τo afford aid or countenance as an acce ory after the fact; to abet. For the difference between comfort and cheer, see CHEER; for that between comfort and console , see CONSOLE.